Good Night, I Love You by Jené Ray Barranco- Book Excerpt

FaithWords
Jul 27, 2017 · 11 min read
Good Night, I Love You: A Widow’s Awakening from Pain to Purpose by Jené Ray Barranco

Chapter One: “I’m Michael”

September 5, 1986. Craig, my older brother, asked me to join him at Poets, a popular piano bar in Jackson, Mississippi. On the weekends, it was the place to go for the twenty- and thirty-something crowd. And actually, the forty- and fifty-something crowd as well, but they sat on the “other” side of the room on the red leather stools by the long wooden bar. The smoky mirror behind the bartenders revealed the revelry in the place. I had never been there — apparently I was one of the few eligible single women my age who had not. Craig took me there because, as he said, “You’ve got to hear this guy who can sing ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay’ like nobody’s business! Even better than Otis Redding himself!”

I soon found out that “this guy,” an up-and-coming young architect by day and an equally talented R&B singer by night, was the most sought after bachelor in northeast Jackson and knew almost everyone in town. But I had never heard of him, and he had never heard of me.

At the last minute, my mom snapped a quick picture of Craig and me before we walked out the door. I was looking very eighties in my red, black, and white color-blocked cotton sweater, black pencil skirt, red short pumps, colored plastic earrings, and of course, the ever-popular four-inch-high bangs and too much eye makeup. Where were the fashion police in the eighties?

As we walked into Poets on the upper level, we saw This Guy behind the red wooden piano bar, standing tall above the crowd, crooning into the microphone with his eyes tightly shut. He was built like a linebacker, had long, naturally curly black hair, and wore an artsy pair of thin wire-rimmed glasses. Behind him stood a wall of stained glass and the members of the Andy Hardwick Trio, three exceptionally talented African American musicians accompanied by this handsome, Caucasian football player singing into the microphone as if he were in his own little world. I remember thinking how soulful he appeared while he sang with his eyes closed, holding the microphone tightly against his chin. He seemed oblivious to the crowd, which was elbow-to-elbow people talking and determined to see and be seen.

Not long after we arrived, the band took a break, and This Guy began making his way through the crowd. As he approached us, he said to Craig, “Hey, how you doing?”

It turned out they recognized one another from the Courthouse Racquet Club, where Craig was a manager and tennis pro. This Guy lifted weights there, but they had never actually met. So Craig introduced himself and then me.

This Guy turned to me and, while leaning in so that I could hear him, said, “I’m Michael,” in the most peaceful and soothing voice I had ever heard come out of a man’s mouth.

“I’m Jené,” I said as I leaned toward his ear and added that I also worked at the racquet club, at the front desk. I was accustomed to repeating my name because many people have never heard it before, and that night was no different. He asked me to repeat it, which I did, then he said it for clarification. I had never heard my name pronounced so beautifully. (He even said the “J” with the correct French pronunciation.) It was as if the room fell quiet. The two of us, and the moment, seemed to be surrounded by a wall from another realm.

The band break was quickly over, and Michael made his way back to the microphone. After a few more songs, Craig and I decided to call it a night. As I stood on the upper level near the front door, I turned, looking Michael’s way for one last glance. In a rare moment, he happened to have his eyes open and made eye contact with me while he was singing. He nodded with a smile, and I walked out the door.

For some reason, I wasn’t surprised when he walked through the double glass doors of the racquet club the next morning. He was wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt that was cut into a tank top, which revealed that he truly was built like a linebacker. We talked for a moment about the previous evening at Poets, and then he went out to the pool. He was there not to exercise but to lie in the sun and catch up on his trade magazines — I saw a couple of Architectural Digests peeking out of the top of his leather satchel. But soon enough, he came back to the front desk for some juice, which he put on his tab. Then he kept coming back for more juice, and more juice, and more juice. Each time we talked a little more, a little more, and a little more. His voice sounded so peaceful and calm even though his mouth seemed stuck in a grin.

He “forgot” to close his tab.

After Michael left the club, I called my mom to tell her that I would not be coming straight home from work that night. I told her about my conversations with Michael and this feeling I had that he would come back and ask me out for dinner.

I was right.

He showed up right before closing and told me how terrible he felt for not paying earlier and that he wanted to settle up with me. He paid for the juice and chatted with me as I finished closing out the register. He walked with me outside and asked if I wanted to go grab a bite somewhere.

We went to McB’s, a very casual and popular dive near the Ross Barnett Reservoir, Jackson’s man-made lake. The reservoir had become a water-sport and fishing attraction. Customers could walk inside McB’s with wet hair, swimsuit cover-ups, cutoff shorts, and flip-flops after having spent the day water-skiing or fishing. We found a table in this log cabin–style joint and ordered some shrimp po’ boys and cold beer. We spent hours that night talking about our faith in God, our large families, our dreams, and even our mutual desire for children (not necessarily together, but just our personal dreams for them). Two weeks later we professed our love to one another, and four months later, on Christmas Eve, we were engaged. We married on September 5, 1987 — exactly one year after we met.

The picture my mom snapped of Craig and me before going to Poets that fate-driven night came to represent the beginning of a beautiful, extraordinary journey that I never could have anticipated. About twenty years after we were married, I made copies of the picture, put them into frames, and gave one to Michael and one to my brother. Craig took pride in knowing he was responsible for bringing us together that singular night.

Michael never let me get rid of that color-blocked sweater. It stayed in a box of wedding memorabilia our entire marriage. To him, it represented a magical moment — when I walked into his life as I walked into Poets that early September evening in 1986.

After much prayer, we began trying to start a family. Exactly five years after we married, our first child, Mia, entered this world with all of her sweetness, flexibility, empathetic heart, and melancholy spirit. Four years later, Julia arrived and immediately showed her insatiable appetite for living and learning. In spite of her bold and confident spirit, she was never one to be too far away from either Michael or me. (Her nickname later became Velcro Girl because at times she sticks to your side.) Miraculously, just twenty months later, Michael Anthony came onto the scene. A spirit of adventure and curiosity showed itself at an early age. He thrived on one-on-one time with Michael or me as well as with one of his sisters, social time with friends, and physical activity, always with a tender heart.

During those early years while the children were very young, I developed the habit of rising while it was still dark to pray and read my Bible. My days took every ounce of strength out of me. I rose each morning desperate to sit at God’s feet to receive more strength. I had an insatiable hunger to understand His will and purpose for my life within the larger story He was writing for me.

I woke at four thirty in the morning for an hour and a half of focused time with God, then spent the rest of the early morning hours writing until the first peep from the children rang out into the meditative silence; a day in the life with small children began all over again. For several years, all I read was the book of Proverbs. With the wisdom of Proverbs as ammunition for my daily battles, a miraculous measure of peace surrounded me during those physically taxing years, and in the years to come. Proverbs 4:25 and 26 became my daily mantra: “Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established” (nkjv). These words kept me grounded and focused as a young mother. I had no idea how crucial this verse would become for my very survival through life’s most difficult times.

While Mia was still a toddler, Michael and I prayerfully chose to be a homeschooling family. We saw our homeschooling lifestyle as a stunningly romantic way to experience and celebrate life, education, and family as a consummate whole. The heartbeat of our family flourished in our french country kitchen. Countless meals and conversations nurtured us around the old wooden breakfast table I’d found at a garage sale the year Mia was born.

From breakfasts with buckwheat pancakes or streusel muffins, to homemade soups or sandwiches made with fresh bread for lunch, to our gatherings at dinner for grilled salmon, risotto, or lamb ragout over polenta, the aroma of a full life was savored in our home. Our family days were full of life, loving, learning, forgiving, sharing, and feasting.

Michael and I lived in our own little universe full of stolenglances, love notes, dates, gifts, private moments, whispers of sweet words that only the two of us could hear — and the private affair we shared with our Heavenly Father. I thought our days would continue to look like this into the future, as we grew old together. But seasons change.

Our fairy-tale family lasted for twenty-four years. Then, on February 22, 2011, life as we knew it was wiped out, as if by a tsunami, in one devastating instant.

I lost the love of my life, Michael Anthony Barranco, Sr., in a car wreck. He had driven out of town for an overnight business trip, to be away for only twenty-four hours.

Our last Valentine’s Day fell just eight days before the accident.

The kids ate together, and then Michael and I ordered takeout and watched a movie in the den. We told them it was our date night and they were to stay upstairs. Michael let me choose the movie and even gave me the green light for any romantic comedy I wanted. I chose Something’s Gotta Give. We had seen it several times, but it’s always worth seeing again. That night we laughed harder than we had ever laughed. The kids later said, “We heard Dad laughing all the way upstairs!”

Diane Keaton’s role as the lead female is a playwright. One of our favorite lines was actually just a spoken thought about the conversation she’s having with her love interest, played by Jack Nicholson. She stops in the middle of what she’s doing and says, more to herself than to him, “Did one of us just say something interesting?” Michael and I frequently tried to catch ourselves saying “something interesting” that would be good movie dialogue.

While we lay in bed together about a month before Michael died, he stayed completely still for a moment, then whispered to me, “Is that someone coming up the stairs” — a short pause — “or is that my heart beating?” He paused again, and then we both laughed and he said, “That would be a great line in a movie!”

What was most amazing about our last Valentine’s Day was that he stayed awake through the entire movie. He always fell asleep during movies at home and even sometimes at the theater. It was because he had stopped moving, thinking, and creating. Both he and Michael Anthony had two gears: on or off, awake or asleep, full throttle or in park. Michael Anthony has been like that since he was old enough to walk. We laughed while watching him fall asleep. Even now our son asks a few questions and yawns in a loud, sighing way, and then he’s asleep. Like father, like son.

That last Valentine’s Day, Michael decided to spread the gifts out one by one, something he had never done before. The first gift was a beautiful gardening book for us to look through together as inspiration for our garden. We liked discussing the details of the garden. We dreamed, got dirty, and sweated together in the garden. After watching the movie, he gave me a little framed piece of embroidery that read, “Any time, any place, any where . . . I will be there for you.” On the day I found out about the accident, I discovered that it was still sitting in the den, where I had opened it. What a precious gift. What a thoughtful man — a simple, small, yet huge gift.

The final gift came that night right as we were drifting off to sleep. He said, “I also paid for you to have a ninety-minute massage with Marion. You need that. Be sure and do that soon for yourself.” Without my mate, I was bereft of physical touch; with this gift, Michael unknowingly met my needs ahead of time.

When all of Michael’s things from his car were brought back to me the night of the accident, I noticed that he had slipped the Valentine’s card I had just given him into the outside pocket of his computer case. He usually carried my most recent card around with him. He pulled it out and read it over and over when he needed a momentary retreat from the daily grind. It transported him to the safety, peace, and love of the children, our home, and me.

The outside of my card read, “Together,” and on the inside I had written, “forever. Happy Valentine’s Day to my husband, the love of my life.”

His card to me read, “I want to hold your hand,” and inside he had added, “and talk less, listen more, hold you, know you like never before, learn with you, laugh with you, cry with you, pray with you, be with you and love you.”

I never opened the gardening book. I completely lost my gardening mojo after he died. It took me three years to begin to inch my way back into the dirt, and then I was able to begin with only a container garden. The embroidery sits on a stone shelf above the fireplace in my writing room. It took me several months after he died to get around to the massage. I cried silently through every minute of it.


If you would like to continue reading GOOD NIGHT, I LOVE YOU by Jené Ray Barranco, it is available in hardcover and ebook formats wherever books are sold, including:

Copyright 2017 Hachette Book Group
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